Visual Semiology

В статье рассматриваются миниатюры персидского списка «Шахнаме» Фирдоуси 1333 года как интерактивные нарративные визуализации, влияющие на формирование ситуационного мышления представителя персидского континуума XIV века. Созерцание живописной миниатюры интегрирует знаньевый потенциал человека и созерцаемую им реальность: благодаря видению «схватываются» и различаются пространственные свойства внешней среды, актуальные состояния мира и параметры жизненного мира, или комплексы образцов поведения. Исследование нарративных визуализаций «Шахнаме» строится на синтезе трансцендентально-феноменологической методологии Э. Гуссерля и положений технической герменевтики как основаниях для выявления нарративно-визуальной схемы моделирования процесса использования знаний созерцателем. В миниатюрах Персидского списка праимпрессии, обозначеные ликами Героев, образуют связь, проявляющуюся в орнаментальном тексте, ретенция визуализируется в изображении рук Героев, фокусирующих внимание на «физическом» элементе истории, а протенция визуально означена изображением коней. Ретенциональное сознание, формируемое нарративными визуализациями в Персидском списке «Шахнаме» 1333 года, способно постигать «конкретное живое настоящее». / The article considers the miniatures of the Persian copy of “Shahnameh” by Ferdowsi of 1333 as interactive narrative visualizations influencing the formation of situational thinking of the representative of the Persian continuum of the XIV century. The contemplation of the pictorial miniature integrates the knowledge potential of man and the reality contemplated by him: due to the vision “grasp” and distinguish the spatial properties of the environment, the current state of the world and the parameters of the life world, or complexes of patterns of behavior. The study of the “Shahnameh” narrative visualizations is based on the synthesis of E. Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological methodology and the provisions of technical hermeneutics as grounds for revealing the narrative-visual scheme of modeling the process of using knowledge by the beholder. In the miniatures of the Persian copy, the praimpressions, marked by the faces of the Heroes, form a connection, manifested in the ornamental text, the retention is visualized in the image of the Heroes’ hands, focusing on the “physical” element of history, and the protension is visually marked by the image of horses. The retentional consciousness, formed by narrative visualizations in the Persian copy of 1333, is able to comprehend the “konkrete Lebensgegenwart”.

In the context of contemporary art we are presented many objects and other spectacles under the pretense not only that they are works of art, but that they allude to ideological discourses that are not apparent in the work of art itself, nor in its museographic setting. In this text, we propose that there is no other meaning in the work of art than that which is materially encoded and there is no more discourse than that which is connected to some configuration physically present in the piece by means of a convention from the general culture that said work belongs to.

Le jouet est l’un des témoins privilégiés des changements sociaux : au centre des transactions familiales,
intimement lié à l’enfance, historiquement différencié entre les sexes, il permet de mettre au jour l'évolution
de la place de l’enfant au sein de la famille ainsi que les transformations des catégories de genre au fil du
temps. Dans cette perspective, les catalogues de jouets apparaissent comme un matériau particulièrement
riche à étudier : ces espaces de commercialisation sont autant de traces écrites permettant d'observer
l'évolution des pratiques culturelles et de consommation ainsi que les mouvances du genre et plus
spécifiquement les représentations sexuées qui accompagnent l’enfant, ses besoins et désirs supposés. A partir
de l'analyse d'un corpus constitué de catalogues de jouets d'enseignes diverses des années 1980 à nos jours,
nous focaliserons notre propos autour de trois axes : l’évolution de l’offre en matière de jouet, des catégories
« garçons » et « filles » et de leurs frontières respectives ; l’évolution du discours linguistique associé aux
jouets, en particulier des injonctions ; l’évolution du discours iconique. Nous verrons ainsi dans quelle mesure
le jouet, pris comme objet d'étude, permet de réinterroger les catégories de genre, leur construction et leurs
variations.

A practical book, based on the most recent advances of art theory, neurosciences and the sciences of sensory perception, that helps both the expert and the student to have a better control over the emotive effects and the behavior produced by any visual composition in its perceiver, be it in architecture, film, graphic design, theatre, painting or any other visual media. Available through http://www.blurb.com/b/8473553-semiology-for-artists-and-designers

A comparison of two theoretical trends in cartography, Map Design and "semiologie graphique", following the works of Arthur H. Robinson (in the US) and Jacques Bertin (in France). The paper questions their development, respective influence and relationships (or absence of relationships)

Uma aplicação da análise do discurso à construção do
sentido no design gráfico. A conjugação de conceitos como a
constituição do signo, a cena enunciativa, os strata substância e
forma , e a função da língua permitem uma melhor compreensão
do design gráfico enquanto instrumentador de comunicação.

The construction of meaning in graphic design from the point of
view of discourse analysis. Concepts as sign structure,
enunciation scene, form and substance,and the function of
language help make graphic design effectiveness as
a communication tooler more understandable.

È estatico ogni discorso che, costruendosi nel linguaggio e col linguaggio, rappresenta nondimeno una fuoriuscita da esso, un bloccarsi della semiosi, un venir meno delle distinzioni che fondano il senso. Trattasi dunque di un’impostura? Dell’evocazione impossibile, fra le maglie dell’immanenza, di una dimensione trascendente nella quale e verso la quale la prima si sfaldi, perdendo la consistenza di strutture e opposizioni? Rispondere affermativamente sarebbe forse semplicistico, sarebbe considerare l’estasi come puro effetto ottico, come sorta di trompe-l’oeil mistico. In realtà, come ogni trompe-l’oeil, anche l’estasi rinvia a qualcosa di più della propria semplice rappresentazione. Essa rimanda ai pregiudizi inconfessati di un’ideologia semiotica, alla trama nascosta, al negativo segreto che regge tutta la concezione moderna del senso e del linguaggio. Il discorso mistico, che corre parallelo e invisibile, spesso represso, a volte perseguitato, lungo tutta la storia delle religioni, esprime allora questo dubbio: e se il senso non fosse distinzione, separatezza, dualità? Se l’immanenza articolatoria che lo viviseziona non fosse che illusoria? A questo punta ogni racconto dell’estasi: al sospetto che i fondamenti della modernità, anti-mistici per definizione, non siano altro che una delle possibilità dell’umano, e che una storia non detta, in filigrana, si dipani accanto e sotto al moderno come traccia sbiadita di un altro percorso, di un altro modo d’intendere e di dire.

Κατά την οριοθέτηση του σώματος ανάλυσης (corpus) αφού κάνω μια γενική κατάτμηση των πλάνων επιχειρώ να απομονώσω κάποια σημεία των σεκάνς και να τα αναλύσω σε βάθος , εστιάζω δηλαδή, σε σημεία τα οποία θεωρώ ότι είναι δηλωτικά ως προς τον ήχο (διηγητικός - εξωδιηγητικός ήχος , συγχρονισμός , ηχητικές μπάντες, ειδικοί ατμοσφαιρικοί ήχοι, ηχητικά εφέ) , τα πλάνα (π.χ υποκειμενικό πλάνο ) , το μοντάζ (φλας μπακ , μεταφορικό μοντάζ , αλληγορικό , ποιητικό , συσχετισμού ιδεών , διανοητικής αναπλήρωσης, εναλλαγή πλάνων, εμβόλιμα πλάνα) , την ιδιαίτερη κίνηση της κάμερας (π.χ γωνίες λήψης) , την mise – en – scene (κοστούμια , μακιγιάζ, φωτισμός , σωματική συμπεριφορά , έκφραση προσώπου). Αυτό που ουσιαστικά διερευνώ μέσα από αυτή τη φορμαλιστική προσέγγιση είναι το συμπτωματικό ή το λανθάνον νόημα έτσι όπως αποδίδεται από την «γλώσσα» της ταινίας. Αυτό που κυρίως με ενδιαφέρει είναι να ερευνήσω το πώς ερμηνεύεται το συμπτωματικό αυτό νόημα καθώς και το πώς μπορεί μια κινηματογραφική τεχνική να κατευθύνει την προσοχή μας, να αποσαφηνίσει , να τονίσει νοήματα και γιατί όχι , να διαμορφώσει την συγκινησιακή μας ανταπόκριση. Στην ταινία που θα αναλύσω στη συνέχεια, δίνω πρωτεύουσα σημασία στην αποκωδικοποίησή της μέσω της μορφής.

Cette recherche porte sur la conception d'un système de signalisation du danger qui soit à la fois trans-culturel et trans-générationnel. Le défi est donc de chercher le bon équilibre entre i) la motivation sur laquelle fonder le lien entre l'objet et/ou l'expérience et le dispositif graphique constituant le pictogramme et ii) la convention sur laquelle repose la possibilité de transformer un ensemble de pictogrammes dans un système. Si on arrive à combiner un lien de motivation assez fort avec un lien de convention assez faible, on n'est peut-être pas loin de construire un système de pictogrammes lisibles indépendamment de toute influence culturelle. Mais est-il vraiment possible de concevoir des pictogrammes compréhensibles par toute com-munauté à toute époque ? * Cet article se situe au sein d'une réflexion menée avec Isabelle Klock-Fontanille, spécialiste de théories et pratiques de l'écriture, en vue de la création d'un système de pictogrammes pour la signalisation du danger.

Di tutte le annunciazioni che popolano la storia umana e le sue svariate tradizioni, al semiologo non interessa la fonte in sé, il numinoso che all’umano si rivolge per significargli di volta in volta la propria presenza, intenzione, sensibilità; interessa, piuttosto, il modo in cui a seconda delle epoche storiche, dei contesti culturali, delle vicende sociali, ma anche delle sensibilità individuali, uomini e donne hanno utilizzato i materiali del mondo, quelli dell’immanenza, per forgiare i significanti del divino. Ovvero, specularmente, il modo in cui hanno immaginato, e creduto con fermezza, che tali materiali divenissero d’un tratto appannaggio di una divina intenzione di comunicare, stoffa della rivelazione, parole annuncianti. Al teologo, non al semiologo, spetta immaginare la ricostruzione della totalità a fronte della quale si dipana il messaggio divino nella sua vicenda immanente. Al semiologo tocca invece un compito che è insieme più modesto e più costrittivo; innanzitutto raccogliere e inventariare queste tracce: in quali circostanze gli uomini e le donne hanno raccontato e raccontano di un loro incontro con il divino? Utilizzando quali segni? Piegandoli a quali necessità comunicative? Il compito successivo, più arduo, è analizzare questi segni, con gli strumenti di cui dispone la metodologia semiotica, per capire se si possano in qualche modo catalogare, suddividere in tipologie, distribuire in atlanti che, anche al di là e a dispetto delle differenze d’origine storica e confessionale, manifestino nondimeno dinamiche comuni nella costruzione e nell’elaborazione del linguaggio.

Semiotics (sometimes spelled “semeiotic”) is the name first given by John Locke, and later reprised by Charles S. Peirce, for the “doctrine of signs,” or the study of how some things can stand for other things to still other things. This deliberate inquiry can be contrasted with “folk semiotic” accounts, which assume that there is some intrinsic feature about, say, the human voice or a painted board that makes them capable of signifying. Such a naive assumption does not withstand serious scrutiny. From a philosophical standpoint, what makes something a sign is an involvement in a specific sort of triadic relation. This relation is found in human/nonhuman and deliberate/nondeliberate signs alike. Semiosis, the action of signs, is what permits communication, but it is wider than communication. For example, if while in an adjacent room I smell that the turkey in the oven is ready, my pet dog can smell it too, and the turkey is not trying to “tell” us anything. But if the cook in the kitchen tells me it is ready, I receive that message, while my dog hears the sounds but is none the wiser (in contemporary semiotic parlance, my dog and I couple our Umwelten via indices, but the symbols at hand generate interpretants only in my anthroposemiosis). In spite of the fact that it has a long and distinguished history (especially during the medieval period), general inquiry into signs became an organized research program only in the mid-20th century. Today, in addition to philosophers, semiotics attracts a wide range of scholars, such as ethologists, cognitive scientists, linguists, art historians, logicians, media theorists, literary critics, computer programmers, biologists, sociologists, and so on. From a methodological standpoint, then, parochialism is not an option. The scholarly literature can nevertheless be fruitfully divided into theoretical and applied strands. Not surprisingly, most philosophers drawn to semiotic questions work in the former strand. Semiotics is not to be confused with “semiology,” a (now largely defunct) project that originated in the lectures of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and which was active in the 1960s, mainly in France. Semiotics, by contrast, is a vibrant tradition that continues to flourish worldwide. Although some persist in employing the term “semiotics” when discussing narrow studies that focus exclusively on cultural codes, such terminological misuse masks the fact that a study of signs is broader than a study of language. A sustained philosophy of signs, then, promises (as Locke initially surmised) to yield truly novel insights.

En el contexto del arte contemporáneo se nos presentan muchos objetos y otros espectáculos bajo la pretensión no sólo de que son obras de arte, sino de que aluden a discursos ideológicos que no son aparentes ni el la obra de arte misma, ni en su montaje museográfico. En este texto, se propone que no hay otro significado en la obra de arte que aquel que está materialmente codificado y no hay más discurso que aquel que esté umbilicado a alguna configuración físicamente presente en la pieza mediante una convención de la cultura general a la que dicha obra pertenece.

The social sciences have mostly focused on the formation of social opinions from a semantic point of view: given a certain semantic field, interviews, statistics, and other analytical instruments are commonly deployed in order to map the distribution of views, their evolution, their conflicts, and their agreements. Socio–semiotics, social semiotics, and the other semiotic branches that bear on social inquiry have contributed to the effort by providing semiotic grids of categorization. These grids too, however, have been mostly related to semantic contents circulating through societies and their cultures. The present article pursues a different hypothesis. After briefly recalling the events of 7–9 January 2015 in the Parisian area, the article seeks to survey and map the syntax of progressive differentiation of opinions circulating in the social networks about such events. Some patterns are identified and semiotically described: 1) cleavage; 2) comparative relativizing; 3) blurring sarcasm; 4) anonymity; 5) unfocused responsibility; 6) conspiracy thought. A new semiotic square is created to visually display these patterns, their positions, their relations, and their evolution.

The study presents a case for the importance of spectacle in modern capitalist social relations. Drawing on theories produced by Debord, Loftus, Žižek, Laclau, Mouffe, Holloway and Eagleton, a theoretical framework for assessing the relationship between ideology and everyday practice is produced. Through this framework, visual culture will be examined to uncover specific representations and productions of nature using the visual case study of Greenpeace’s #SavetheArctic campaign.

Due to the recent nature of this campaign, there is an obvious shortage of literature examining this case study from an environmental governance perspective. It is therefore the intention of this dissertation to partially fill this gap, if only by raising questions for further research. The study finds, through the use of visual semiology, that Greenpeace’s campaign images represent a continuation of the use of spectacle to oversimplify complex relationships. This campaign also appears to posit nature as Othered, a key component for the commodification of nature. Through their strong production of a hero narrative, surrounding both their own activists and a puppet of a polar bear (named Paula), Greenpeace produced Debord’s ‘safe’ rebellion and were, perhaps, subsumed into capitalist relationships as is suggested possible by Holloway’s Crack Capitalism thesis.

The study concludes by arguing that Greenpeace’s spectacular campaign tactics may undermine their own campaign objectives and even argues that Greenpeace have produced a ‘triple spectacle’ to provide rebellion to their own spectacular rebellion. The consequences for environmental governance are that many environmental non-governmental organisations rely too heavily on the use of spectacle to achieve campaign goals. The use of spectacle contradicts much academic work conducted on consumptive practices by focussing on the role of large corporations and governments rather than the everyday practices of ‘ordinary’ people in governing environmental resources and managing pollution.

1) Présentation et discussion rapides des grandes plateformes de diffusion de contenu audiovisuel: You Tube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, …
2) Discussion de l’importance centrale du « tournant audiovisuel » dans la culture contemporaine populaire rendu possible, entre autre, grâce à la banalisation des étapes de la captation audiovisuelle (de l’enregistrement), du montage, de la diffusion en ligne, du partage et de la réutilisation/du re-mixage de contenu déjà existant.
3) Analyse d’une première vidéo « amateur » nous fournissant en quelques secondes des impressions de la Piazza del Campidoglio à Rome
4) Analyse d’une deuxième vidéo amateur de la visite d’un temple à Taïwan - le temple Shueisian à Dingcaiyuan - par un petit groupe de personnes).
5) Présentation raisonnée d’un petit lexique de termes spécialisés pour la description sémiotique de documents audiovisuels.

In the commemorative year 2014, a German governmental organisation presented an exhibition to the public. Most of the exhibits were documentary photographs. For political scientists who are interested in politics of history in general and visual representation of history in particular a search for an appropriate theoretical and methodological approach started. While the interdisciplinary discourse is characterized by an unproductive polarity between realists (especially in Social Sciences and History) and constructivists (especially in Cultural Studies) not only since the iconic and pictorial turn respectively, the article sounds out a perspective in-between. Contrary to the mainstream, who treats Roland Barthes as a realist, the starting point here is a post-constructivist reading of his photo-theoretical works. It allows neither to transfigure photographs as permeable media nor to misconceive their power of evidence as a mere coding. In addition, the semiologue provides some very helpful instruments to deconstruct visually organised myths within the framework of a historical exhibition.

Les média parlent tout le temps de « fondamentalisme religieux » comme d’un élément essentiel de la scène sociale, culturelle, politique, et même militaire contemporaine. Mais qu’est-ce que c’est, au juste, le fondamentalisme religieux ? Comment peut-on distinguer un message fondamentaliste ? Et d’où dérive-t-elle la force communicative par laquelle ce type de discours se répandit de façon globale, surtout à travers internet et les nouveaux social networks ? Pour comprendre la nature profonde du fondamentalisme religieux, il faut étudier non seulement ce qu’il dit mais également, et peut-être surtout, sa façon de dire, sa rhétorique, sa manière d’évoquer un imaginaire et d’y situer le bien et le mal, les alliés et les ennemis, les fidèles et les infidèles. C’est en connaissant les stratégies de communication des fondamentalismes religieux, en outre, qu’on pourra comprendre que peut-être partagent-ils tous, malgré les différences de langue, confession, époque, milieu, et moyens d’expression, un « air de famille », une perspective particulière sur le sens du langage, du monde, de la vie. C’est donc à la sémiotique, la science de la signification et de la communication, qu’on doit demander de décrire de façon rigoureuse les formes persuasives du fondamentalisme contemporain.

Article in French
Résumé. - L'idée que les cartes et les diagrammes ne sont pas seulement des sources d'information, mais aussi des outils de communication, n'est pas si nouvelle. Dès le XVIIe siècle, certains auteurs géographes souhaitaient des représentations graphiques lisibles et efficaces, et non plus seulement justes et complètes. Bien que dans la Sémiologie graphique (1967), J. Bertin ne se réfère à aucune tradition, il existe bien une réflexion théorique sur l'image antérieure à ce traité majeur. Cet article en souligne quelques moments forts, rappelant les apports de personnalités telles qu'Emmanuel de Martonne ou Maximilian Eckert. Il présente aussi, hors des frontières de la géographie, les premières expérimentations sur la graphique menées par des statisticiens dans la première moitié du XXe siècle.
Abstract
Abstract. - The idea that maps are not only a repository of information, but also a mean of communication, is not so new. As early as the XVIIth century, a few geographers wished for maps that would be not only precise and complete, but also legible and efficient. In his Sémiologie Graphique (1967), J. Bertin did not refer to any tradition, yet a theoretical reflection did exist before his major treatise. This article points out some milestones in the history of graphical thinking. It mentions the contribution of personalities like Emmanuel de Martonne or Maximilian Eckert. It also presents the first experiments on the perception of diagrams done by statisticians in the first half of the XXth century.

In this working paper (to be published in 2017), we present a general outline of a theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing what we call (in analogy to landscapes) textscapes. Textscapes are signifying perceptual surfaces that form, so to speak, the interface with the meaning universe framing the lifeworld (Husserl 1986; Schütz and Luckmann 2003) of an actant (of, for instance, a social actor such as a person, a social group, a community, etc.).

In this sense, textscape descriptions and comparisons are of central importance for a semiotics of cultures understood as a text - or discourse –based approach of the description of meaning systems that possess for an actant (here restricted to social actors) a constitutive and normative status. The description of such meaning configurations composing the doxa (conceptions, visions, know-hows, values and norms) of a social actor (i.e. his – in the sense of Greimas (1979) - fundamental semantics) has to rely on a structured approach for dealing adequately with textscapes as the principal data to be studied: the identification of relevant textscapes, the techniques of collecting and conserving them, the analysis of corpora of textscapes or again the experimentation with textscapes.

In the first chapter, we will discuss the status and the role of textual data in cultural analysis, viz. the description of a cultural meaning ecosystem. In the second chapter, we will introduce with the help of a concrete example the notion of textscape. The example we will discuss, is a small extract of a typical open market textscape as we can find them, for instance, in Europe. In the following chapter (chapter 3), we will discuss textscapes in a broad sense as signifying 3D-surfaces of the lifeworld of social actors (persons, social groups, …). For this discussion, we will use another concrete example, i.e. the multiple textscapes of the kitchen lifeworld. In the fourth chapter, we will discuss – again on the basis of a concrete example – communicational textscapes, i.e. textual surfaces conceived especially and principally for diffusing and sharing messages. The example we use is a specimen of modern urban communicational textscapes as we can meet them especially in the East Asian megalopolis.

Estratto dal testo:  "In 'A prova di morte' (2007) di Quentin Tarantino ci sono quattro personaggi femminili, quattro morti cruenti, quattro brevi sequenze e ancora, svariati e rapidi primi piani di ragazze che ballano su una canzone alla radio, una veloce soggettiva dal sedile anteriore della macchina di una ragazza. Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) accende i fari della sua auto, vediamo a ralenti lo scontro automobilistico, il corpo delle vittime di Mike che si squarciano in ripetute collisioni e poi metallo, gomma, ossa e carne. In un istante il corpo umano si unisce forzatamente alla tecnologia ed il piacere si unisce al dolore. A prova di morte si basa su due sequenze di scontri fra auto. Il primo scontro, ripetuto per quattro volte, segna un distinto passaggio di genere, ambientazione e di cast. Si potrebbe facilmente sostenere che A prova di morte combini due diversi film, la prima parte è prevalentemente horror mentre l’ultima è più un film d’azione. Tarantino ne carica la struttura combinando horror ed azione, realtà e finzione, piacere e dolore e citazioni a non citazioni." (Traduzione a cura di Gemma Lanzo)

Article publié en 1998 dans CEMOTI. Nous vous remercions de mentionner la référence suivante en cas de citation : Copeaux Etienne, Mauss-Copeaux Claire, « Le drapeau turc, emblème de la nation ou signe politique ? », Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (CEMOTI), n° 26, 1998, pp. 271-291.]

Ces exemples montrent aussi que, d'une part, un spectacle peut être plus ou moins spectaculaire (un concert de jazz l'est plus qu'un concert de musique classique) ; de l'autre, que n'importe quelle situation de la vie quotidienne peut être spectaculaire (lorsqu'elle adopte cette rhétorique de la solution qu'on est en train de pointer, par exemple lorsqu'elle ouvre et gère des situations qui font sens comme étant traitées avec virtuosité). Le spectaculaire, comme la spectacularisation, consiste bien en des effets graduels, approximatifs, locaux, mais aussi plus ou moins reproductibles, transposables, généralisables.

There is no meaning without manifestation. The materiality of expression must channel the potentiality of human thought into perceptible ontology. If in most existential domains this constraint seems unproblematic, in religion it often turns into paradox. Religious imaginaries abound with ideals of totality, completeness, and infinitude. Yet, revelation too, meant as the human grasp of the exceptional ontology of transcendence, requires expression. Every expression, though, as linguists and semioticians of all backgrounds assert, results from exclusion. Transcendence that signifies is therefore diminished transcendence, totality that withdraws from itself in order to create a space of finitude, a space that language can inhabit.
But religious language rarely renounces the aspiration of integrity: bridging, through semiosis, the ontological abyss between the absolute quiet of perfect transcendence and its signs for the world, for the existent, for life. To different extents, all religious traditions strive for a paradoxical implosion of semiosis. They design formulae, rituals, and practices whose oxymoronic purpose is to signify the return of signification to its imperturbable origin. This paradoxical semiotic goal generates two tensions: a positive one, wherein religious discourse aims at perfectly signifying the totality of its sacred referent through the elaboration of a total interpretant; a negative one, wherein religious discourse pursues the same objective through the elimination of every interpretant. The first tension gives rise to the mystical parole, the second, to the iconoclastic practice. Both are intrinsically doomed to fail, but both animate through their energy the diachronic evolution of religious cultures.
Through case studies stemming from different religious contexts and epochs, the paper seeks to determine the characteristics of this dynamic, its meaning in the frame of a general semiotic philosophy of religion, its interactions with the history of semiotic ideologies and, above all, what it reveals on the nature of humanity.

В сообщении рассматривается модель развития философских и научных дискурсов, названная автором моделью предметного замыкания. Процессы предметного замыкания развиваются в знаниевых (направленных на выработку знаний) дискурсах (философских и научных дисциплинах и школах) под влиянием практик репрезентации в рамках дискурса его предмета с помощью особого вида знаковых конструкций, выражающих схемы различных содержаний его предметной области. По мере роста, прослойка из таких конструкций начинает заслонять от участников дискурса исходный предмет, и их внимание (а, следовательно, и общая направленность дискурса) переключается на изучение этих знаковых конструкций и другие виды оперирования с ними. Для такого замыкания на знаковых конструкциях, репрезентирующих в дискурсе исходный предмет исследования, необходимо выполнение ряда вторичных семиотических функций: адекватного построения, трансформации/манипулирования, контроля адекватности, изучения. Обычно эти функции выполняются практиками построений, практиками рассуждений и практиками вычислений, каждый тип которых участвует в обеспечении сразу нескольких функций. Вероятно, именно отсутствие полного набора этих практик и выполняемых ими функций является основной причиной отсутствия явно выраженных процессов предметного замыкания в ряде дискурсов, массово практикующих схематизацию своих предметов и фиксацию ее результатов с помощью той или иной замыкающей знаковой системы.
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The report considers the model of development of philosophical and scientific discourses, which is called by the author "the model of subject-matter closing". The processes of a subject-matter closure progress in the discourses, aimed at the production of knowledge (philosophical and scientific disciplines and schools). The processes origin under the influence of any semiotic and epistemic prac-tices, during which the iconic signs of special type begin to substitute its original subject-matter with-in the discourse. By the growth, a layer of such structures begins to overshadow the original subject-matter of the discourse for actors, their attention (and, consequently, the general orientation of the dis-course) switches to the study of these iconic structures and to other types of operating with them. For progress of subject-matter closing of any discourse, it is necessary to have implementation in it of a number of secondary semiotic functions: adequate building, transformation/manipulation, monitoring of the adequacy, and study. Usually these functions are executed by practices of buildings, by practic-es of inferences and by practices of calculating, each of which is involved in the provision for some of the functions. In some discourses we observe the using of semiotic systems being suitable for subject-matter closure, but don‘t observe processes of the closing. Probably, that the lack of the practices or the functions is a major cause of the absence of such processes.

Det langsomme spejl – den billedskabte
erindring i familien – er en bog der kan læses på mange måder. Man kan læse den som en levnedsskildring om en dreng i 1950’erne der lever i en lille familie i en provinsby, til han flytter fra det første hjem og familie. Man kan læse bogen som en slags case på problemer med forandringer og mønsterbrud. Man kan læse bogen som en slags kulturhistorie om 1950’erne set gennem ’det private livs histo­rie’.
Man kan læse bogen som en
historie om gryende ung­­doms­kultur og medie­historie lige før alt eksploderer i økono­mi, velfærd og ændrede værdier. Og man kan læse bogen som inspirations­kilde til metoder til at undersøge sin egen private historie, familien og værdierne.  Og måske kan den læses, som – hvad en af min gode venner ønskede sig for længe, længe siden – Bruno’s Billedbog.

"Iconic Power is a collection of original articles that explores social aspects of the phenomenon of icon. Having experienced the benefits and realized the limitations of so called "linguistic turn," sociology has recently acknowledged a need to further expand its horizons. "Visual sociology" is emerging as a separate field and prominent scholars announce the coming of "the pictorial turn." The methods and themes taken up in these studies respond to this shift in social scientific interest. Each contribution to this book carefully tests the analytic purchase and empirical implications of iconicity. If we can succeed in understanding the iconic, we should be able to know our culture much better.

As the Australian sociologist of art Eduardo de la Fuente pointed out, "Iconic Power" is "the strongest theoretical statement to yet come out of the 'strong program' in cultural sociology." He emphasized the importance of 'iconicity' as the concept that more than 'ritual' or even 'performance' promises to break free of economistic, linguistic, and other kinds of reductionisms that plague the cultural sciences. The British cultural sociologist David Inglis praised the book's wide empirical coverage. For these reasons, "Iconic Power" can serve as a guide on how to approach the tremendous social efficacy of the visual and other non-discursive symbols. "

Fur die Vermittlung von politischen Zusammenhangen sind Neue Medien seit geraumer Zeit zentral. Sie sind in unserer Kultur vergleichsweise leicht zuganglich, machen ihren Nutzer_innen ein kaum mehr zu uberschauendes Wissensangebot und erweitern in einer bis zu ihrer Durchsetzung ungekannten Art und Weise unseren Weltbezug. Die Politikvermittlung fordert Medienschaffende dabei regelmäßig heraus.

Kadına yönelik Ģiddeti engellemeye yönelik Zeytinburnu Belediyesi tarafından hazırlanan afiĢlerde, Ģiddet, kadına dövülmüĢ izlenimi veren makyajla ifade edilmeye, görselleĢtirlmeye çalıĢılmıĢtır. Bu fotoğraflarda kadın özgüvensiz, korkmuĢ, canı yanmıĢ ve silik bir karakter olarak resmedilmektedir. BM tarafından ödüle layık görülmüĢ, bu konuya dikkat çeken baĢka bir afiĢte ise bu görsel öğelere yer verilmemiĢtir. Bu iki farklı görsel aynı konuya dikkat çekmek isterken göstergeleri birbirinden oldukça farklıdır. Bu gösterenlerin gösterilenleri aynı mıdır, gösterdikleri kadın kimliği birbirine benzer midir yoksa farklı mıdır?

Giard, Agnès, « Effet de loupe : le porno japonais et l’accès à l’intime », dans Julie van der Kar et al. (dir.), Weporn. Le X et la génération Y, Bruxelles, Gsara, 2016, p. 74-79.
.................................................................................................................................................................................... RESUME : Dans le musée du Rokuharamitsu-ji à Kyôto, la statue du moine Kuya donne l’impression d’avoir les yeux fermés, aveugles au monde phénoménal. Certains visiteurs avertis s’accroupissent devant elle. Si, en les imitant, on scrute de près le visage sculpté, l’œuvre s’anime. Logé sous le repli de la paupière, un œil à la cornée de cristal (gyokugan kannyû ) darde sur ceux qui entrent dans son champ un regard à l’effet de réalisme saisissant. Brusquement, Kuya vous regarde. Dans le cinéma pornographique japonais , l’échange intense est rendu possible suivant les mêmes règles : l’actrice est filmée avec un objectif en oeil de poisson, afin de reproduire artificiellement la vision en focale courte qui garantit l’accès à l’autre. L’effet de loupe créé l’illusion d’une grande proximité. Que déduire de ce procédé courant dans l’iconographie érotique japonaise ?

Filière Communication Interculturelle DREA OIPP  Objectifs du cours …  Comprendre le rôle et l'importance de ces productions audiovisuelles dans la construction, circulation et transmission des modèles et représentations culturels:  des connaissances, des croyances, des valeurs, …  des représentations, d'images, de stéréotypes, …  Analyser et comprendre le « regard » (filmique, photographique) des individus et groupes sociaux sur le monde et aussi sur euxmême.  Analyser et comprendre l' « écriture audiovisuelle » (i.e. les techniques de mises en image et du montage des personnes, objets, situations, … représentés dans les documents

Entre 1684 et 1685 Andrea Pozzo peint une Conversion de Saint Ignace de Loyola pour l’église romaine consacrée au Fondateur de la Compagnie de Jésus. Dans la partie supérieure de la fresque le peintre place Saint Pierre qui, deux clefs serrées dans la main gauche, l’autre bras aiguillé vers le seul, surplombe Saint Ignace. Toutefois, comparant ce fragment de la fresque avec les biographies ignaciennes antérieures, l’on constate tout de suite que l’image s’éloigne sensiblement du récit écrit. Dans les notes autobiographiques que Saint Ignace dicta à Gonçalves da Cámara, par exemple, ainsi que dans la biographie de Ribadeneira, Saint Pierre n’apparaît pas à Saint Ignace. Au contraire, c’est ce dernier qui en invoque le secours lorsqu’il lutte entre la vie et la mort dans le château de Loyola après la bataille de Pampelune. La fresque de Pozzo présente donc à la fois une inexactitude et un anachronisme : dans l’image Saint Pierre apparaît à Saint Ignace, et en plus cette apparition a lieu non pas après, mais pendant la bataille de Pampelune. S’agit-il d’une simple faute ? Ou bien d’une conséquence involontaire du passage de la parole à l’image ? Improbable, vue l’importance de la fresque, la formation religieuse du peintre et l’entourage dans lequel il travaillait, où les biographies de Saint Ignace étaient sans doute connues par cœur.
Au contraire, l’article essayera de montrer que la fresque d’Andrea Pozzo est agencée de façon à représenter la conversion de Saint Ignace en utilisant les formules visuelles typiques de l’iconographie d’une autre conversion, celle de Saint Paul. Grâce à cette superposition iconographique, Saint Ignace se configure comme un nouveau Saint Paul, et le pathos de la conversion du second se transmet à la conversion du premier. Toutefois, expliquer cette transfiguration par le concept warburgien de pathosformel serait réduire ce transfert iconographique à un simple transfert de formules passionnelles. En réalité, dans la fresque de Pozzo — ainsi que dans d’autres images qui « citent » l’iconographie de la conversion de Saint Paul — ce qui se dégage est une « pathosformel théologique », exprimant une conception théologique précise du changement spirituel. Représenter la conversion de Saint Ignace comme la conversion de Saint Paul signifie donc affirmer, dans l’image et par l’image, un point de vue théologique. L’exposé aura pour but de comprendre quelles sont les origines historiques et les implications théologiques de cette opération, par laquelle la Compagnie de Jésus annonce, dans l’une de ses églises les plus représentatives, sa pensée à propos du voilement de la volonté et de la révélation de la grâce.

Giard, Agnès, « La censure au Japon », colloque international "De quoi la contre-culture est-elle le oui ?", organisé par la Halle Saint Pierre,  Le Collège International de Philosophie et Art Brut Connaissance & Diffusion. Maison des cultures du monde, Paris (24 juin 2013).

""In his chapter “Iconspicuous Revolutions of 1989: Culture and Contingency in the Making of Political Icons,” Dominik Bartmański revisits the European icons of the euphoric year of 1989 and asks what constitutes a powerful iconic fact. Specifically, he explains why the fall of the Berlin Wall emerged as the icon of 1989 and has retained this symbolic status ever since.

The answer is not obvious. 1989 was full of epochal events and important figures busy making history. Especially the earlier, politically unprecedented changes in Hungary and Poland had opened up a revolutionary space in which such events like the fall of the wall became possible at all. And yet they have not attained the same lasting influence on the international collective imagination. To reconstruct this phenomenon is to tell a story about how the iconic can trump the political. By demonstrating what counts in public perception as “revolutionary,” “political signal,” and “beginning” and “end” of a social process, Bartmański shows the role that iconicity plays in constituting these key categories and thus in structuring our ability to notice, understand, and remember events. By "public perception" Bartmanski does not mean only the "lay audiences" but also the producers of the journalistic facts themselves. Indeed, all social groups are deeply enmeshed in and responsive to the background codings and symbolic imperatives of a given culture.  It is precisely the various aspects of iconic power that makes events amenable to wide appropriation and socially "resonant". It is their iconicity that turns them into “objective,” temporal markers of history.

Of course, the key question is: what constitutes "iconic power"? Is it purely arbitrary signification structure or something different? What accounts for the fact that some symbolic representations and performances stick and others don't?

To answer these questions the present paper offers an analytical framework that identifies several constituent elements of iconic power. It distinguishes (1) "iconic capital," i.e. the historical accretion of symbolic resources associated with a given entity, (2) "cultural congruity," i.e. the fit between a given entity's character and the genre of cultural performance it is supposed to represent, and (3) "remembrance patterns," i.e. commemorative practices.

Each element is a bundle of material forms and affordances ("surface") and discursive content ("depth"). Only when all the elements coalesce in a felicitous way can an iconic effect emerge. Bartmanski observes that although open-ended and contingent, this iconic process is not arbitrary but instead rooted in the specific meanings structures that make certain social outcomes more plausible than others. 

Performing the cultural reconstruction of 1989 along those lines provides a "thick" elaboration of two observations that function as epigrams for the present paper.

The first is theoretical and was made by Roland Barthes in his essay "Rhetoric of the Image": "In every society various techniques are developed intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs."

The second was made by an anthropologist Daphne Berdahl who insisted that "among other things, the revolutions of 1989 were about visibility - making visible 'the people'."

Just like other chapters in this book, the present sociological interpretation of political symbols inevitably takes us beyond the surface of news pictures to the surfaces and depths of events, to singular bodies and powerful crowds, sights and sites, built structures, and symbolically constructed narratives. It is the new prism of iconicity through which the effects of shocking and euphoric events that seem deceptively simple and well known can be explained in full. """

Is there any difference between the widely discussed ‘pictorial turn’ and the emerging ‘iconic turn’? If so, does it matter? The answers to these questions are positive if we look at the problem from a cultural sociological point of view. It has been observed that the concept of the ‘iconic turn’, coined by a German philosopher Gottfried Boehm, may capture more effectively the sense of life attributed to visual objects than W.J.T. Mitchell’s famous ‘pictorial turn’. This article endorses this conjecture and provides a theoretical context for its justification. It thus contributes to the emerging debate about the paradigm shift in studies of visual culture.

"https://vimeo.com/fluxations/psfirstsoloside  FluxNOISations solo from an improvised duet performed with FluxNoisations and circuit-bent radio  (for front on view of the complete performance visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBra9gd5QQ )  In this solo, Joshua B. Mailman: FluxNoisations (sounds of wood, metal, water, sandpaper, sticks, etc. and live computer graphics controlled through infrared camera motion-capture and sensor gloves)  All sounds and graphics are generated in the moment of performance.  The event includes improvised live computer graphics, a colorful spectacle projected on a large screen, controlled by spontaneous body- and hand-movements of Mailman, through his FluxNoisations interactive-dance system. Through this system, Mailman simultaneously generates and steers a stream of percussive-noise sound."